Electrophotographic image forming apparatus are widely known. Those image forming apparatus are apparatus which are configured to form an electrostatic latent image on a surface of a photosensitive drum with light, cause toner to adhere on the photosensitive drum along the electrostatic latent image, transfer the adhered toner onto a recording medium such as paper, and fix the toner onto the recording medium by a fixing device.
In order to cause the toner to adhere from the photosensitive drum to the recording medium, it is necessary to cause the recording medium to adhere onto the rotating photosensitive drum to transfer the toner. After that, the recording medium is separated from the photosensitive drum, but the recording medium does not separate from the photosensitive drum in some cases. To address such a case, there is known an image forming apparatus including a separation claw for forcibly separating the recording medium from the photosensitive drum.
For example, as disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. Hei 9-43995, there is known an image forming apparatus having a configuration in which the separation claw includes a separation claw main body and a holding member, the separation claw main body is swingably mounted to a housing of a cleaning device through intermediation of the holding member, and a claw part moves along a surface of the photosensitive drum due to the own weight of a weight part of the separation claw main body. The separation claw is made of a resin, and has a weight structure whose leading end is sharp. In the structure, the leading end is formed sharp, and the leading end is pushed into a region between the photosensitive drum and recording paper to separate the recording paper. Further, the separation claw main body is integrally molded from a resin material so as to include the tapered claw part at a front end and the weight part at a rear end thereof. Further, the holding member is formed of an elastically deformable thin plate made of a metal. Therefore, for example, even when a force acts to the claw part at the time of removing paper clogging near the photosensitive drum, the holding member elastically deforms in accordance with this force, and hence the paper removal can be facilitated. In addition, the claw part is prevented from being damaged and the like. An image forming apparatus including such a separation claw is known.